We will be changing offices over the next month or two. Our current
phone gear is leased from the owners and won't be coming with us. It's
ISDN using Avaya kit; we use 10 lines on there.
We were thinking about a move to VoIP. Is this feasible for a business
with a measily 10 lines or so, or is the business world not quite ready
for that? I accept there'd be a risk of broadband going down, but with
POTS fall-over from the VoIP provider we could live with that... IF
there'd be benefits elsewhere.
The features we'd like are:
* 10 IP Phones
* Ability to receive calls on 10 DDI's
* Voicemail
* Internal/ External Call transfer
* Route a DDI to a teleworkers phone at home or mobile
* The box to run everything (Preferably an all-in-1 solution, and maybe
look into something like Asterisk later.)
"Steven" <steg@steg.com> wrote in message
news:5joak6Fj1peU1@mid.individual.net
: : Hello all,
: :
: : We will be changing offices over the next month or two.
: : Our current phone gear is leased from the owners and
: : won't be coming with us. It's ISDN using Avaya kit; we
: : use 10 lines on there.
: :
: : We were thinking about a move to VoIP. Is this feasible
: : for a business with a measily 10 lines or so, or is the
: : business world not quite ready for that? I accept
: : there'd be a risk of broadband going down, but with
: : POTS fall-over from the VoIP provider we could live
: : with that... IF there'd be benefits elsewhere.
: :
: : The features we'd like are:
: :
: : * 10 IP Phones
: : * Ability to receive calls on 10 DDI's
: : * Voicemail
: : * Internal/ External Call transfer
: : * Route a DDI to a teleworkers phone at home or mobile
: : * The box to run everything (Preferably an all-in-1
: : solution, and maybe look into something like Asterisk
: : later.)
: :
: : Easily achievable, or should we stick with ISDN?
I should think Gradwell could do most if not all of that. Peter Gradwell
the MD posts here occasionally. Try http://www.gradwell.co.uk/voip/
> We were thinking about a move to VoIP. Is this feasible for a business
> with a measily 10 lines or so, or is the business world not quite ready
> for that? I accept there'd be a risk of broadband going down, but with
> POTS fall-over from the VoIP provider we could live with that... IF
> there'd be benefits elsewhere.
Depends how much of a benefit you'd like to see in order to counterbalance a
lack of incoming or outgoing phone calls. For some businesses it could be
fatal.
> The features we'd like are:
>
> * 10 IP Phones
What's your budget?
> * Ability to receive calls on 10 DDI's
> * Voicemail
> * Internal/ External Call transfer
> * Route a DDI to a teleworkers phone at home or mobile
All standard features for any IP phone system, but I recommend you steer
clear of systems that require you to license individual components
[voicemail licenses, user licenses, etc on top of the cost of the handsets]
as that's a bit of a fuck on.
> * The box to run everything (Preferably an all-in-1 solution, and maybe
> look into something like Asterisk later.)
Asterisk usually is all-in-one and is unlikely to require more than one
server for only 10 handsets. If you do want to move to Asterisk later, pick
a PBX that uses Asterisk-compatible handsets, ie SIP handsets, one example
of which is Mitel. A lot of Mitel's current handsets are SIP and MiNet dual
mode so can be used with both Asterisk and a Mitel controller. However, you
haven't mentioned why you don't want to just use Asterisk from the get-go?
There's plenty of Asterisk-knowledgeable people out there so finding
someone to design and install it shouldn't be a problem. Throw a brick at a
bunch of VoiP-knowlegeable people and you'll likely hit one.
> Easily achievable, or should we stick with ISDN?
The one thing you haven't mentioned is how many simultaneous calls you
expect to have, because that will determine how much bandwidth you'll need.
But in general, yeah stick with ISDN, because you aren't likely to be able
to afford an internet connection that can match your ISDN circuits for
reliability. You can of course mix and match, so you could have 2ch of
ISDN2e and then an ADSL Max Premium to effect cheap DDIs and LCR.
Steven wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> We will be changing offices over the next month or two. Our current
> phone gear is leased from the owners and won't be coming with us. It's
> ISDN using Avaya kit; we use 10 lines on there.
>
> We were thinking about a move to VoIP. Is this feasible for a business
> with a measily 10 lines or so, or is the business world not quite ready
> for that? I accept there'd be a risk of broadband going down, but with
> POTS fall-over from the VoIP provider we could live with that... IF
> there'd be benefits elsewhere.
>
> The features we'd like are:
>
> * 10 IP Phones
> * Ability to receive calls on 10 DDI's
> * Voicemail
> * Internal/ External Call transfer
> * Route a DDI to a teleworkers phone at home or mobile
> * The box to run everything (Preferably an all-in-1 solution, and maybe
> look into something like Asterisk later.)
>
> Easily achievable, or should we stick with ISDN?
As a busines user, I'd echo what others have said here. Stick with ISDN
and use the VOIP for LCR. We have all our calls coming in via ISDN with
outgoing to mobile and international going via VOIP.
>
> We were thinking about a move to VoIP. Is this feasible for a business with a measily 10 lines or so, or is the business
Less than 10 lines is probably the sweet spot for hosted VoIP installations.
> Easily achievable, or should we stick with ISDN?
You have 2 questions.
1) to have ISDN or not have ISDN
And if you don't have ISDN:
2) to have a IP PBX onsite, or just use a hosted provider.
If you really need 10 lines, then you aren't going to get enough
bandwidth on a normal ADSL line to support 10 calls. (well, not without
dodgy compression which won't sound so good)
In the VoIP world, lines are a bit washy. I've spoken to lots of people
who only have 4 people in their office, but have 10 phone lines on an
old system. They don't want to risk that an inbound call will get a
busy tone, rather than hitting the voice mail or call queue. If you go
hosted, you effectively have unlimited lines into the hosting provider.
Is your traffic mainly incoming calls or out going?
Jono suggested mixing and matching. This is easily possible if you have
an IP PBX onsite.
For instance, you could take 4 channels of ISDN from BT to use for your
inbound calls, and put all your outbound calls out through a SIP
provider. This could save you a loads of ISDN line rental, but still
leave you with a backup channel to the outside world.
On the other hand, if you are at the level of getting ISDN30, then
channels don't cost that much anyway.
Tim wrote:
> Steven wrote:
>
>> We were thinking about a move to VoIP. Is this feasible for a business with a measily 10 lines or so, or is the business
>
> Less than 10 lines is probably the sweet spot for hosted VoIP installations.
>
>> Easily achievable, or should we stick with ISDN?
>
> You have 2 questions.
> 1) to have ISDN or not have ISDN
> And if you don't have ISDN:
> 2) to have a IP PBX onsite, or just use a hosted provider.
>
> If you really need 10 lines, then you aren't going to get enough
> bandwidth on a normal ADSL line to support 10 calls. (well, not without
> dodgy compression which won't sound so good)
Thanks for all the replies.
Just to clarify our requirements:
The 10 DDI's aren't essential. In fact, probably a luxury. The office
works fine with one number at the moment; The important bit is we have a
phone on each of the ten desks. There's very rarely more than 3 calls
going on simultaneously with the outside world. Maybe one or two
internal calls on top of that, but I presume this traffic wouldn't go
out over the Internet and back? If a limit was set of 3 external calls
it would probably go unnoticed.
> In the VoIP world, lines are a bit washy. I've spoken to lots of people
> who only have 4 people in their office, but have 10 phone lines on an
> old system. They don't want to risk that an inbound call will get a
> busy tone, rather than hitting the voice mail or call queue. If you go
> hosted, you effectively have unlimited lines into the hosting provider.
> Is your traffic mainly incoming calls or out going?
A 50-50 split.
> Jono suggested mixing and matching. This is easily possible if you have
> an IP PBX onsite.
The consensus appears to be VoIP isn't quite ready for offices then?
On 30 Aug, 17:45, Steven <s...@steg.com> wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> We will be changing offices over the next month or two. Our current
> phone gear is leased from the owners and won't be coming with us. It's
> ISDN using Avaya kit; we use 10 lines on there.
>
> We were thinking about a move to VoIP. Is this feasible for a business
> with a measily 10 lines or so, or is the business world not quite ready
> for that? I accept there'd be a risk of broadband going down, but with
> POTS fall-over from the VoIP provider we could live with that... IF
> there'd be benefits elsewhere.
>
> The features we'd like are:
>
> * 10 IP Phones
> * Ability to receive calls on 10 DDI's
> * Voicemail
> * Internal/ External Call transfer
> * Route a DDI to a teleworkers phone at home or mobile
> * The box to run everything (Preferably an all-in-1 solution, and maybe
> look into something like Asterisk later.)
>
> Easily achievable, or should we stick with ISDN?
In my view, it is feasible to go VoIP- only if you have a dedicated
broadband line for voice. ADSLMax perhaps? And there's Swyx and
VOIspeed to consider as well as Asterisk...If I were moving office I
think I'd go VoIP only!
theipguy wrote:
> On 30 Aug, 17:45, Steven <s...@steg.com> wrote:
>> Hello all,
>>
>> We will be changing offices over the next month or two. Our current
>> phone gear is leased from the owners and won't be coming with us. It's
>> ISDN using Avaya kit; we use 10 lines on there.
>>
>> We were thinking about a move to VoIP. Is this feasible for a business
>> with a measily 10 lines or so, or is the business world not quite ready
>> for that? I accept there'd be a risk of broadband going down, but with
>> POTS fall-over from the VoIP provider we could live with that... IF
>> there'd be benefits elsewhere.
>>
>> The features we'd like are:
>>
>> * 10 IP Phones
>> * Ability to receive calls on 10 DDI's
>> * Voicemail
>> * Internal/ External Call transfer
>> * Route a DDI to a teleworkers phone at home or mobile
>> * The box to run everything (Preferably an all-in-1 solution, and maybe
>> look into something like Asterisk later.)
>>
>> Easily achievable, or should we stick with ISDN?
>
> In my view, it is feasible to go VoIP- only if you have a dedicated
> broadband line for voice. ADSLMax perhaps? And there's Swyx and
> VOIspeed to consider as well as Asterisk...If I were moving office I
> think I'd go VoIP only!
Well, that was my thinking as well... It'd be nice to go with a
relatively new technology, but if it falls on its face the MD won't be
too impressed :)
A company has quoted £2k for a phone/PBX, then 2x ISDN lines from BT
would be £180+v/q. So £2k up front and £846 a year. (It'd be a Panasonic
PBX, one of those dedicated things that I doubt is anywhere as
configurable as what as Asterisk box would be if we went with one of
those later.)
10x VOIP phones would work out about £1k, then looking at something like
Centrex with Gradwell works out pretty cheap. Say £60 a month for an
ADSL Max line and that should carry 3/4 external calls easily?
But then another poster on one of the uk.telecom groups has just been on
complaining about Gradwell! I doubt it's them personally, probably more
that the technology just can't be relied upon, rather than a fault with
that company.
Any views or experiences from people who've gone VoIP only would be
appreciated.. With info about your setup!
Steven wrote:
> Tim wrote:
>> Steven wrote:
>>> The consensus appears to be VoIP isn't quite ready for offices then?
>>
>> Not at all. We use it all day everyday.
>
> Care to expand on that with some information about your setup? :)
We have Snom phones in the office (Mainly 360s, but with some 370s, 320s
and a 300). Also a few Siemens Dect phones to walk around with.
These all connect to an asterisk box (IC talk variety) which is onsite.
Gradwell hold our main incoming number, which they deliver on SIP to
the asterisk box.
We have various outbound providers setup on PBX, set to failover in case
of failure.
On our ADSL line we have a CTX1000 to traffic shape.
Our PBX is on a public IP address, so it is really easy for remote users
to connect to it. Some phones are on public IPs, others are behind NAT.
We have had a SIP based office phone system since December 2002.
Initially we connected to ISDN2 lines in the office, giving us 4 voice
channels. Remote users connected to the office SIP system.
When we got ADSL we started to put out outbound calls down the ADSL into
a SIP provider. This was because the ISDN lines weren't really enough -
we wanted to makesure we never missed an incoming call.
Then we moved offices in October 2006. Initially we left an ISDN
gateway in the old office to deliver calls to the PBX in the new office.
After our number port went through, we cancelled the ISDN lines. This
was partly driven because BT wouldn't allow us to take our number to the
new premises.
Tim wrote:
> Steven wrote:
>
> If you really need 10 lines, then you aren't going to get enough
> bandwidth on a normal ADSL line to support 10 calls. (well, not without
> dodgy compression which won't sound so good)
>
Using the asterisk-guru bandwidth calculator (which I know is only a
vague guideline), 10 simultaneous calls using G.729a over trunked IAX2,
would use 94.84 Kbps in each direction.
I'd hardly call G.729 a dodgy compression method.
A more important consideration in my opinion is how reliable and
consistent your internet connection is.
A lot of the time you'd only notice short intertmittent loss of signal
(which is common with many ADSL connections) when you start using
realtime services such as VoIP.
> The 10 DDI's aren't essential. In fact, probably a luxury. The office
> works fine with one number at the moment; The important bit is we have a
> phone on each of the ten desks. There's very rarely more than 3 calls
> going on simultaneously with the outside world. Maybe one or two
> internal calls on top of that, but I presume this traffic wouldn't go
> out over the Internet and back? If a limit was set of 3 external calls
> it would probably go unnoticed.
It depends on the way it is setup. If your hosted voip/centrex provider
uses asterisk, then internal calls likely will go out+in - but it's not
a problem.
ADSL Max (8 meg down, 800k up) will give you 10 concurrent calls, so you
could dedicate an ADSL like to VoIP phones.
>> Jono suggested mixing and matching. This is easily possible if you have
>> an IP PBX onsite.
>
> The consensus appears to be VoIP isn't quite ready for offices then?
I think it depends on your attitude to risk. As a hosted VoIP provider i
can point to multiple thousands of clients like yourselves on our books
who now only have one analogue line, broadband and a couple of mobiles
as their only 'alternative' to their VoIP service, and it works ok. I
can't say it is perfect - but it does work.
However, it's risky, because it's new, fairly unproven (only thousands
of people doing it rather than millions) and the software does crash
occasionally cutting off your phone call.
ISDN apparently doesn't do this - but I hear plenty of horror stories of
people with ISDN pbxes, and have one client who uses VoIP as a backup
for their ISDN system!
> But then another poster on one of the uk.telecom groups has just been on
> complaining about Gradwell! I doubt it's them personally, probably more
> that the technology just can't be relied upon, rather than a fault with
> that company.
We have a few customers with bad combinations of ADSL providers, ADSL
routers, internal network setups. We also have a few issues with our
asterisk platform dropping audio occasionally.
On the flip side, we have quite a big engineering & technical staff, a
very nice load testing system and a good handle on what the problems are
and how to fix them - so where the customers have patience, we are doing
just that.
We also have sufficient numbers of happy customers for us to know that
we're doing the right thing, and if we get it working perfectly, we're
onto a winner!
Peter Gradwell wrote:
> ISDN apparently doesn't do this - but I hear plenty of horror stories of
> people with ISDN pbxes, and have one client who uses VoIP as a backup
> for their ISDN system!
About 18 months ago, I had an ISDN line down for about a week while BT
got around to fixing it.
Also, you can only receive calls on an ISDN line, on the end of that
single line.
With a VoIP service provider, you can receive those calls pretty much
anywhere you can get a decent internet connection.
> Peter Gradwell wrote:
>> ISDN apparently doesn't do this - but I hear plenty of horror stories of
>> people with ISDN pbxes, and have one client who uses VoIP as a backup
>> for their ISDN system!
>
> About 18 months ago, I had an ISDN line down for about a week while BT
> got around to fixing it.
>
>
> Also, you can only receive calls on an ISDN line, on the end of that
> single line.
>
> With a VoIP service provider, you can receive those calls pretty much
> anywhere you can get a decent internet connection.
Does anybody offer a hybrid IP/ISDN connection? So one could have a couple
of channels of ISDN2 + an IP trunk, set up so that if either was congested
[or offline for that matter], incoming calls could fail over to the other?
In article <46d97fbf$0$645$bed64819@news.gradwell.net>, Peter Gradwell
<peter@gradwell.com> writes
>hi
>
>> But then another poster on one of the uk.telecom groups has just been on
>> complaining about Gradwell! I doubt it's them personally, probably more
>> that the technology just can't be relied upon, rather than a fault with
>> that company.
>
>We have a few customers with bad combinations of ADSL providers, ADSL
>routers, internal network setups. We also have a few issues with our
>asterisk platform dropping audio occasionally.
>
>On the flip side, we have quite a big engineering & technical staff, a
>very nice load testing system and a good handle on what the problems are
>and how to fix them - so where the customers have patience, we are doing
>just that.
>
>We also have sufficient numbers of happy customers for us to know that
>we're doing the right thing, and if we get it working perfectly, we're
>onto a winner!
>
>cheers
>peter
Disclaimer: I use a Gradwell VOIP service!
Personally, I am a sole trader, I have a Snom320 on a Demon ADSL line..
I 'work from home'. - Meaning I am not actually there that much! ;-)
I set the service up to forward to my mobile if it isn't answered, but
it takes quite a while to actually ring on the mobile. - Perception of
calling party.
I did put Gradwell 'lines' into a Client, but a combination of early
ADSL (pre ADSL Max lines) and existing ISP problems meant it was not
robust enough. - Sorry Peter, but this is out experience, and it was 18+
months ago.
Am about to link three sites with n x ISDN with IP trunks for internal
calls, and to allow things like 'accounts queries' to be transferred to
Head Office.
I'm not sure what platform you're currently using but if you use IP
Office and have a control unit that supports running V4 core software
and you have a VCM in the system, then you can evaluate SIP trunking for
45 days - albeit just a single channel - at no cost as it's available as
a trial licence.
Using a VoIP provider to connect your calls is dependent upon the
quality of service the SIP trunk provider offers and the quality of the
IP connection to that provider. I'm working on a project at the moment
whereby a SIP trunk provider will be providing 40x trunks with DDI to a
client of ours using Avaya kit. The provider is supplying a 2Mbit leased
line (could be SDSL) as well as having the customer's phone numbers
ported to them and providing the SIP trunking. I'm apprehensive but
quietly quite excited. I have only ever really toyed with it - using it
to carry a few calls over shared IP connections.
I know it works well given all the right parameters, but this is a call
centre that has chosen to do things this way so the capabilities will be
fully tested.
Using a hosted IP PBX solution, ie some kind of IP Centrex provider
might be an option for you but I would imagine you'll miss some of the
functions and flexibility you would have in running your own PBX.
Ed
Steven wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> We will be changing offices over the next month or two. Our current
> phone gear is leased from the owners and won't be coming with us. It's
> ISDN using Avaya kit; we use 10 lines on there.
>
> We were thinking about a move to VoIP. Is this feasible for a business
> with a measily 10 lines or so, or is the business world not quite ready
> for that? I accept there'd be a risk of broadband going down, but with
> POTS fall-over from the VoIP provider we could live with that... IF
> there'd be benefits elsewhere.
>
> The features we'd like are:
>
> * 10 IP Phones
> * Ability to receive calls on 10 DDI's
> * Voicemail
> * Internal/ External Call transfer
> * Route a DDI to a teleworkers phone at home or mobile
> * The box to run everything (Preferably an all-in-1 solution, and maybe
> look into something like Asterisk later.)
>
> Easily achievable, or should we stick with ISDN?
Edward Hobson wrote:
> Using a hosted IP PBX solution, ie some kind of IP Centrex provider
> might be an option for you but I would imagine you'll miss some of the
> functions and flexibility you would have in running your own PBX.
I find that on a small scale, the centrex providers are have more features.
For instance, call queues are fairly standard in the SIP centrex world.
But they are an expensive add on for most sub 10 user PBX systems.
Peter's summary is very astute and obviously comes from someone with a
sound working knowledge of VoIP service provision.
My own experience would echo his sentiment - VoIP is very flexible and
workable, but contains an element of risk - some of it technical and
some of perception-based:
I have had an Asterisk system in house for about 18 months on 'long term
trial' and it now runs the phones for IT support (2), HR (1) and
Marketing (1), all with 'DDI' numbers, voicemail, diverts to mobiles for
OOH service etc. In addition, we have phones on about 10 remote sites
connenected via ADSL. One of these sites has 5 phones and the others are
mostly singles for Managers when they work from home.
Overall our trial has been a great success and we have had very few
major outages - the worse has been about a week ago when our provider
(voip.co.uk) lost PSTN gateway interconnectivity for about a day.
During the trial period, I decided that one of our new locations could
go entirely VoIP and they have their own Asterisk server on site and 8
extensions in a busy working environment constantly taking customer
calls. Overall the system has worked well with the exception of 1
'crackly' phone which had a dodgy handset - hardly a problem unique to VoIP.
On the downside, I have been battling with one Director who considers
VoIP technology to be too cutting edge and he has a very negative
attitude towards it or any expansion of our long-term trial - his
(non-technical) stance is based on the following:
1) We had his analogue line patched in to the system via an SPA3102 ATA
and this was very sensitive to silence on the line and despite our
tweaking he kept getting dropped calls. We 'fixed' this by replacing the
SPA with a FritzBox.
2) Our 'new location' (above) was in fact an office move and while I am
sorting out the porting of its landline number to our VoIP provider we
have a BT smart divert on the line to take their inbound calls into the
VoIP system. On two recent occasions the divert has stopped working and
even though I have proved to him that the VoIP system was working fine
throughout (by dialling its 'DDI' number) he still classes this as a
VoIP failure.
3) One of our staff support roles uses a 'DDI' number linked to a VoIP
phone. This role was recently moved from one office to another so I
setup a SIP phone on the new site and reconfigured Asterisk to deliver
inbound calls to it - this took all of about 10 minutes to do.
Unfortunately, the phone kept dropping calls for the first few days and
I eventually discovered the site's ADSL service had some erratic packet
loss which was solved by replacing the ADSL router and microfilter. I
also found a NAT-related problem that I had not encountered before. My
boss (the MD) has told me I was 'timewasting' fixing the problem and I
should have just ordered a BT landline for the site. Go figure!
In summary, the principles of VoIP/SIP/IAX seem to work fine but there
are a lot of parts to the whole and everything needs to work 'just so'
for the system to behave - including the attitude of non-technical
Directors!
Business VoIP 
Linear Mode
